Obama wants to classify the internet a utility

[BuSTMeANuT]

http://www.businessinsider.com/presi...ampaign=buffer


Is this a good thing or a bad thing in the long run?

[SrslySirius]

http://www.businessinsider.com/presi...ampaign=buffer


Is this a good thing or a bad thing in the long run?

It's an extremely good thing and should have been done years ago. ISPs in the US have muscled out competition and are gouging customers. They have plans to make it even worse. Same thing happened with telephone carriers a few decades ago as I understand it, before Bell was broken up.

However, I doubt Obama's sincerity on this as he appointed the current FCC chariman, who is a former lobbyist for the cable industry.

[Dan Druff]

Bad.

It will add bureaucracy and red tape onto the business of providing internet service, which will result in higher prices and stifling regulations.

Net neutrality sounds great on the surface, until you really think about it. Some problems include:

- ISPs will likely be denied the ability to thwart DoS attacks or heavy spammers due to unintended side-effects of these "neutrality" laws

- Services such as YouTube stream an obscene amount of data, and they only pay for the bandwidth on one end (the sender side). However, as most home broadband connections are unlimited, they are not paying their ISPs for streaming a ton of data through these services. This results in YouTube and other highly-used, high-bandwidth services getting the bandwidth on the receiver's end for "free", and these ISPs are forced to build bigger networks to accommodate that data. By charging these high-bandwidth companies in order to stream at high speed, some of these costs can be recouped, which is fair.

- The fear that ISPs will block websites and throttle connections to certain popular sites is mostly unfounded. Simply put, ISPs have existed for around 20 years, and this has never been an issue. The current model for broadband internet access isn't broken, so why introduce legislation to "fix" it with more rules? Furthermore, consumers wouldn't stand for a lot of these actions and would vote with their pocketbooks, so these concerns seem overblown.

- Speed of a site is not just about data speed. Large companies already have an advantage over small companies delivering data to the internet, as they can afford more powerful servers. For example, ESPN is likely to display web pages quicker than PokerFraudAlert. It is not possible to create an "equal" situation for users on the web.


Basically, I am against creating needless government oversight (or more rules) for something that is working relatively well on its own.

[Dan Druff]

http://www.businessinsider.com/presi...ampaign=buffer


Is this a good thing or a bad thing in the long run?

It's an extremely good thing and should have been done years ago. ISPs in the US have muscled out competition and are gouging customers. They have plans to make it even worse. Same thing happened with telephone carriers a few decades ago as I understand it, before Bell was broken up.

However, I doubt Obama's sincerity on this as he appointed the current FCC chariman, who is a former lobbyist for the cable industry.

How are consumers being gouged?

Look at how much data you get for a relatively cheap monthly payment.

[Sanlmar]

The government never helps. The unintended consequences always outweigh any benefit.

Let the free market hash this out.

[Dan Druff]

Those that want the government to put its nose into regulating ISPs need to look a bit into the past.

The year was 1994. I lived in Riverside, CA. My new girlfriend lived in Bellflower, CA, just 50 miles away.

How much did it cost for me to call her? During 9am-5pm, it was 37 cents for the first minute, and 28 each additional. It dropped 30% in the evening and 60% after 11pm. However, simply talking an hour or so on the phone per day ran my bill up to over $400.

Keep in mind that this was 1994, and not the stone ages of telecommunications. You could call to New York, almost 3000 miles away, for just 10 cents per minute. So why was it 3 times that much to complete calls just 50 miles across town?

Government regulation.

Why couldn't I switch to a cheaper company?

Government regulation.

I was stuck. My choice was either paying these exorbitant rates set by "regulation", or to stop calling my new girlfriend.

Finally, there were proposals to change this dreadful situation. The local telephone companies, which were clearly benefiting from this situation, threw up all kinds of complaints about how it really costs them this much money to provide these local calls, and how any change to the system would bankrupt them. Fortunately the the California Public Utilities Commission (Republican-controlled at the time, btw) called BS, and competition was opened up for this so-called "local long distance".

On January 1, 1995, I was now paying 1 cent per minute for these same calls.

So was this a success for regulation, as they fixed this obnoxious gouging of the customer? No. It persisted this way for DECADES prior to 1995, simply because the telephone companies were regulated utilities and forbidden to compete with one another. The regulatory bodies did nothing to stop the phone companies from gouging people. The corrupt/incompetent forces in place to protect us simply protected the status quo.

In general, I am very leery about bringing regulation into anything where there hasn't been a demonstrated and persistent problem for the consumer. Even then, the government needs to tread lightly, as often regulation opens up different forms of abuse by special interests, some of whom get involved with writing the new laws themselves.

[sonatine]

The unfortunate truth is that our non-regulated internet experiment has been a horrific failure. We rank #26 for national average end-user throughput. Seriously.

This is a corrective measure, albeit a touch socialist perhaps. The grim truth is that something has to happen to unfuck our cable dynasties stranglehold and this is the most viable solution.

[tyde]

sick synopsis Todd

did not read

don't give a flying fuck

your opinions on any subject are so predictable

I scroll like a motherfucker when I see these walls of text where you whine like a bitch

[Dan Druff]

The unfortunate truth is that our non-regulated internet experiment has been a horrific failure. We rank #26 for national average end-user throughput. Seriously.

This is a corrective measure, albeit a touch socialist perhaps. The grim truth is that something has to happen to unfuck our cable dynasties stranglehold and this is the most viable solution.

Tell me, how often are you on the internet and exclaim to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had a faster connection"?

I bet almost never, and the few times you do, it's when you're downloading an illegal torrent of something.

The average user's experience on the internet is fine. Slowness tends to be server-related, not bandwidth related. Yes, there are some bargain $20/month DSL connections which give laughable 1.5 MBps speed (which are likely dragging down the national average you referred to), but you can pay like $10-$20 more per month and get to a speed which serves 99% of your needs,

You know how quick I am to chide companies large and small for screwing the consumer, but I'm just not seeing a problem here. I think we are paying a fairly reasonable price for our internet access, and I am not seeing the average consumer experiencing bandwidth problems.

When people complain of slow internet experiences, it's usually either because their computer is crap (or infected with malware) or because the websites they are visiting are on crap servers. It's rarely because they aren't getting the fast bandwidth speeds seen in other countries.

I will go as far to say that I always advise people NOT to pay extra for the fast bandwidth speeds currently offered, as they are a waste unless you do a lot of downloading or HD streaming.

[sonatine]

Pretty sure Todd has an intact rear window on his car tho.


</counterpoint>

[sonatine]

The unfortunate truth is that our non-regulated internet experiment has been a horrific failure. We rank #26 for national average end-user throughput. Seriously.

This is a corrective measure, albeit a touch socialist perhaps. The grim truth is that something has to happen to unfuck our cable dynasties stranglehold and this is the most viable solution.

Tell me, how often are you on the internet and exclaim to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had a faster connection"?

I bet almost never, and the few times you do, it's when you're downloading an illegal torrent of something.

The average user's experience on the internet is fine. Slowness tends to be server-related, not bandwidth related. Yes, there are some bargain $20/month DSL connections which give laughable 1.5 MBps speed (which are likely dragging down the national average you referred to), but you can pay like $10-$20 more per month and get to a speed which serves 99% of your needs,

You know how quick I am to chide companies large and small for screwing the consumer, but I'm just not seeing a problem here. I think we are paying a fairly reasonable price for our internet access, and I am not seeing the average consumer experiencing bandwidth problems.

When people complain of slow internet experiences, it's usually either because their computer is crap (or infected with malware) or because the websites they are visiting are on crap servers. It's rarely because they aren't getting the fast bandwidth speeds seen in other countries.

I will go as far to say that I always advise people NOT to pay extra for the fast bandwidth speeds currently offered, as they are a waste unless you do a lot of downloading or HD streaming.

First off, people who dont live near/in major metropolitan exchanges regularly experience congestion during prime time. That's totally a thing.

Second off, I play Quake 1 like a boss so you know a nigga needs his ping time right.

Third off, lol @ 1gig a month or whatever being considered 'normal' for cell phone data networks. Fuck. Outta. Here. Oh my GOD fuck outta here with that.

Fourth off, and this should catch your attention; the reason why we are only starting to see real growth in the streaming content provider market is because the companies who provide cable TV also control the faucet for throughput, and have the most to lose if people turn off their cable subscriptions and start going to streaming sources. Which obviously they cant because throughput is dogshit for most people.

Bonus points: we should all be on IPV6 now, not 4, and we arent because Amerifat IP providers cant count that high.

[TheXFactor]

Why the U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Internet Speed and Affordability
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/up...abt=0002&abg=1

Downloading a high-definition movie takes about seven seconds in Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Zurich, Bucharest and Paris, and people pay as little as $30 a month for that connection. In Los Angeles, New York and Washington, downloading the same movie takes 1.4 minutes for people with the fastest Internet available, and they pay $300 a month for the privilege, according to The Cost of Connectivity, a report published Thursday by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute.

Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris...$30 a month for unlimited high-speed internet.

In the U.S. it's $300 a month for slower limited high-speed internet.

Fuck AT&T, Verizon and just about every other wireless carrier and internet service provider.
All these cellular companies and ISP's have conspired to fuck over their customers.

[Sanlmar]

The unfortunate truth is that our non-regulated internet experiment has been a horrific failure. We rank #26 for national average end-user throughput. Seriously.

This is a corrective measure, albeit a touch socialist perhaps. The grim truth is that something has to happen to unfuck our cable dynasties stranglehold and this is the most viable solution.

The NSA approves this message.

South Korea's throughput is top top.

New York Times reported on some other differences between South Korea and the rest of the world: The Internet is far more regulated.

For example:
*Schoolchildren can’t play online games in the evening.

*Adults who want to play online games at night need to provide their resident registration numbers.

*Until last year, commenters were required to use their legal names when posting comments.

*Many sites ban search engines from indexing their websites. (This is easy to do anywhere in the world with a robots.txt file, but most people in other parts of the world want search engines to index their sites.)

*Google Maps can only provide directions via public transit, not by car, bike, or on foot.

*Maps and other navigation data cannot be exported outside the country.

*A government ministry, the Korean Communications Standards Commission, blocks “objectionable” content, including porn.

[sonatine]

Basically if I had to pick one point; cable providers want to protect their golden egg laying goose by squashing innovative stream-based competition, and its having a real chilling effect, and also seriously fuck those guys in the throat because what we pay for what we get is gross.

[simpdog]

Tell me, how often are you on the internet and exclaim to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had a faster connection"?

I bet almost never, and the few times you do, it's when you're downloading an illegal torrent of something.

The average user's experience on the internet is fine. Slowness tends to be server-related, not bandwidth related. Yes, there are some bargain $20/month DSL connections which give laughable 1.5 MBps speed (which are likely dragging down the national average you referred to), but you can pay like $10-$20 more per month and get to a speed which serves 99% of your needs,

You know how quick I am to chide companies large and small for screwing the consumer, but I'm just not seeing a problem here. I think we are paying a fairly reasonable price for our internet access, and I am not seeing the average consumer experiencing bandwidth problems.

When people complain of slow internet experiences, it's usually either because their computer is crap (or infected with malware) or because the websites they are visiting are on crap servers. It's rarely because they aren't getting the fast bandwidth speeds seen in other countries.

I will go as far to say that I always advise people NOT to pay extra for the fast bandwidth speeds currently offered, as they are a waste unless you do a lot of downloading or HD streaming.

First off, people who dont live near/in major metropolitan exchanges regularly experience congestion during prime time. That's totally a thing.

Second off, I play Quake 1 like a boss so you know a nigga needs his ping time right.

Third off, lol @ 1gig a month or whatever being considered 'normal' for cell phone data networks. Fuck. Outta. Here. Oh my GOD fuck outta here with that.

Fourth off, and this should catch your attention; the reason why we are only starting to see real growth in the streaming content provider market is because the companies who provide cable TV also control the faucet for throughput, and have the most to lose if people turn off their cable subscriptions and start going to streaming sources. Which obviously they cant because throughput is dogshit for most people.

Bonus points: we should all be on IPV6 now, not 4, and we arent because Amerifat IP providers cant count that high.

Point 2 - cell phone 1 gig normal -- Definitely agree, laughable! They always rip consumers off on something. Previously it was calls, then text messages, now it's data.

Point 4 - I have absolutely no idea why one of the cable companies/dish companies doesn't spend 500 mill on infrastructure/technology and beat the others to market. Start using a pay per episode/single channel model. Everyone wants shit on demand and less of it. We do not need 500 channels of HD. People download shows/movies because they can get it withing 5-10 minutes and throw it on their XBMC/whatever media setup they have.

[El Gallo]

Sonatine is on point... Druff you are way off here man. Your rationalization here is flawed. You are glossing over the significant issues. 1 gig is nothing to the average user. I go through 2 gigs a week easily on wireless. At home I need at least 16 MB to be able to stream Netflix on 3 televisions and still be able to work. That's what is normal in families today. Not all families are 3 people like yours. Wait till your kid starts playing Minecraft while streaming youtube videos and talking on his cell.

I don't need to repeat what Sonatine already said.

[sonatine]

Cable TV is such a robust tapestry of fails.

[sonatine]

Also Im about to set up a public Quake 1 server so come the fuck at me bros.

[BHS]

Cable TV is such a robust tapestry of fails.

AGREE -

I don't even understand why anyone pays for it.

Anybody with a clue can stream pretty much anything they want, whenever they want, in high quality, with no ads, for free.

HBO, Showtime, any sporting event, etc.

HDMI cable 4 life - fuck cable tv right in the pussy

[sonatine]

What I find most offensive about cable tv isnt the content dead-zone, but the luridly dysfunctional interfaces they provide to navigate it. A close second is that they clearly refurb decades old hardware for us so obv the DVR hard drive is constantly in a state of semi failure so on.